Beauty Dies Read online

  “If I weren’t with Claire Conrad, I wouldn’t be in this hotel right now,” I retorted.

  He took a deep breath. “Try to understand. I’ve got Mr. Orita.” His breath came out in one long desperate sigh. “What’s one more dead whore to Claire Conrad?” he blurted.

  The two men at the table turned from their water and peered at Desanto.

  “I’ll tell you, Desanto, what one more dead whore is. She’s one more dead woman.” I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. My anger was in full bloom. Now the two men stared at me, their satisfied faces pinched with annoyance. I was feeling better.

  Desanto’s eyes narrowed till he looked like one of the rosewood Chinese ladies peeking over her fan. He tucked in his chin and marched out of the room. The two men paid and left. I stared at the churches and the brownstone. There was a plaque on the big fat church. In the two weeks I’d been here I’d never bothered reading it. I slid off the stool and peered out the window. I could just make out the word lepers, the word dead, and another word: rinse. Rinse? Rinse the lepers. Rinse the dead? Couldn’t be. But then I didn’t know much about the Christ Scientist Church. Maybe they believed in a good rinsing. I was sitting back at the bar when Boulton came in.

  “Are you all right, Maggie?” he asked, taking the stool next to me.

  “Yes.”

  He called the bartender over and ordered a brandy.

  “Miss Conrad’s been looking at the video. She wants you to buy some of those fashion magazines such as Vogue and Bonton.”

  “We should’ve helped Jackie.”

  The bartender served Boulton his drink. He waited for the barman to leave before he spoke.

  “Even if Miss Conrad had taken the case, Jackie still would’ve walked out of the hotel and been murdered. Nothing could have prevented that, Maggie.” He took a long swallow of brandy.

  “I know. But at least she would’ve known that for once somebody had taken her seriously.” I studied the sharp line of his aquiline nose. He studied my lips. “How do you adjust to it?”

  “To what?”

  “Murder. Death.”

  “You learn to separate yourself from it. You become an observer.”

  “A spectator?”

  “In a way.”

  “Like wearing a pair of black-and-white shoes.”

  “How many martinis have you had?”

  “Only one.”

  He smiled. It was a lovely warm smile. I liked him sitting next to me. I had to restrain myself from resting my head on his big broad shoulder.

  “Have you ever been in love with a woman, Boulton?”

  The smile disappeared. He stared at me for a moment as if he were debating something within himself, then sighed as if he had lost the debate.

  “I have had great passion for women. I have had great respect for women. I have even felt passion and respect for the same woman. But I have never been in love.”

  “I knew that.”

  “You have probably been in love many times.” The watchful brown eyes took me in. “We’re perfect for one another.”

  We smiled, knowing we were deeply attracted and that we weren’t perfect for one another. Distance, Maggie. I turned and looked out the window. “Can you read that plaque on the church?”

  He walked over to the window. “Something about to raise the lepers, to raise the dead.” He took his place next to me.

  “Of course. Raise the dead.”

  “That’s the one thing even Miss Conrad will agree she can’t manage,” he said with a slight grin. “But she can find Jackie’s killer.” He tossed off the rest of his brandy. “She’s waiting for those magazines.” The English butler was back. Our intimate moment was over.

  I made it down to a little shop off Park that sold magazines and newspapers from as far away as Croatia. I could never find an L.A. Times in the place. I guess that was too far away for New Yorkers. I bought the April editions of Vogue and Bonton and asked the woman behind the counter if she had any left over from a couple of months ago. She went in the back and came out with the February and March issues of Bonton.

  I made two other stops. One was to a nearby Catholic church. The great thing about this city is that there is a church of your choice on practically every corner. It’s kind of like gas stations in Los Angeles. I lit a candle for Jackie.

  The last time I had lit a candle, I was sixteen years old. It was for my father. I had sat in the back of the church and watched the priest, a Scotsman with gin-colored eyes, snuff my candle out. When I’d confronted him, he informed me that he was saving money. There were only a few candles and so many sorrows, and my father was going to die anyway. My father did. Religion has a practical side to it.

  Jackie’s flame was tiny and I could almost feel its warmth.

  My last stop was the shoe store. The black and white spectator pumps. I just looked. Observed.

  Back in the suite Claire was in her chair, her eyes bright with the intensity of thought. Claire was at her best when she was working on a case, and a murder gave her the kind of glow usually reserved for women in the first stages of a love affair. I handed her the magazines and sat down at my desk. Jackie, in the red dress, was freeze-framed on the screen. Boulton kneeled on one leg before her image, like a man about to propose marriage. Except he had his camera and was taking a picture of her image.

  “It’ll be a bit grainy,” he commented, “but serviceable.”

  “Fine.” Claire tilted her elegant head toward me and pointed her ebony walking stick at the TV. “What do you see, Miss Hill?”

  “Jackie in a red dress.”

  “Look again.”

  “A red dress that’s a little too large for her.”

  “Yes. And?”

  “But even not fitting properly, the dress looks great. Expensive.”

  “Couture. I would say three or four thousand dollars’ worth. Jackie couldn’t afford such a gown. Where did it come from?”

  “The model Sarah Grange?”

  “Odd. Very odd.”

  “We can move on to the next,” Boulton said.

  Claire clicked the remote control. Sarah came into view. Sultry anger showed in her eyes. Claire clicked the remote and Sarah stopped moving. Boulton began taking his pictures.

  “Something is disturbing me.” Claire stood and began to pace methodically. “The killer had to have followed Jackie to our hotel. Why not kill her before she’d made contact with you, Miss Hill? Or at least when you left her standing outside the hotel? Why wait until she’d spoken to me?”

  “Are you saying you think it was a mugging? She said she was being followed.”

  “I’m saying that the killer did not seem concerned with the fact that Jackie had talked to me.”

  “Maybe the killer didn’t know you were staying in the hotel.”

  “Then why take the newspaper clipping?” Boulton observed.

  “Exactly.” Claire leaned one elbow on the top of the Queen Anne, and rested her chin in her hand.

  Boulton stood. “I’ll take the film down to one of those fast photo places. They can have it developed in about an hour.”

  “Take the photo of Jackie to Bergdorf Goodman,” Claire instructed me. “Go to the designer section. See if they recognize the dress, if they know who the designer is.”

  “All right.”

  “Tonight, Boulton, I want you to take the photographs to Peep Thrills. See what you can find out about Jackie.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “He gets Peep Thrills and I get Bergdorf’s? That is the most sexist delegation of work I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Sexist? Miss Hill, you know I detest such words. They clutter the language. They impede any rational thinking. Why do you persist in using them?”

  I knew she detested words ending with ist and ism, except the word elitist, of course, but it was my only weapon against her. I didn’t want to stay here running errands and writing. I wanted in on this one. I had a candle burning.

  “I use t
hose words because you persist in making reactionary decisions,” I said pompously, then leaned back in my chair for an even more obnoxious affect. I got a grimace.

  “My decision is not based on any reactionary polemics, Miss Hill. It is based on reality. You will not be accepted at Peep Thrills.”

  “I’ll be accepted because I’m a woman. The girls there will talk to me. They’ll identify with me. You think they trust men?”

  Claire stalked my desk. “Miss Hill, the women performing at Peep Thrills will not identify with you. Quite the contrary, you will be the only woman there who isn’t being manipulated by male sexual fantasies. Therefore, you will be a threat to both the men and the women, hardly conducive to obtaining information.”

  I turned on Boulton. “I suppose you agree?”

  “I do. Except I’m not so sure who is manipulating whom.”

  “Look, we all feel guilty about Jackie’s death,” I said.

  “Guilty?” Claire spoke the word as if she’d never heard it before. “I expose the guilty, Miss Hill. I don’t feel guilty.”

  “All right, I feel some kind of responsibility. And running around picking up gloves and magazines and going to Bergdorf’s is not helping you solve this murder. The women at Peep Thrills will accept me.”

  Claire and Boulton shared a knowing look. Claire spoke: “You have this middle-class fantasy that it is your God-given right to be accepted by anybody and everybody. Life, Miss Hill …”

  “Now we’re making class distinctions,” I said doggedly. I knew I had her.

  She sighed, then looked at Boulton. “The thought of an evening with her in this suite as she rages on about feminism, sexism, elitism, guilt, and class distinctions fills me with dread. Take her with you.”

  “But, madam, I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “Alas, my decision is based on self-preservation, not wisdom, Boulton.”

  “Quite. I’ll have these developed,” he said stiffly, and walked out of the room. Claire slouched into her chair.

  “It is times such as this that I wonder how I could have possibly hired you, Miss Hill. Was it an unguarded moment of compassion for all those future employers you would torture? Or just a moment of insanity?”

  “It was my charm.” I smiled.

  “All the charm of a cobra in a basket.”

  “Sexism and feminism aside, I’m surprised you’re not going yourself.”

  Her dark blue eyes came to rest on mine. The lapis shimmered. “I have never liked the smell of Lysol mixed with the smell of sex. It lacks humanity.”

  Four

  TWO HOURS LATER, HOLDING a photo of Jackie in a manila envelope, I stood in front of Bergdorf s. I pushed through the revolving door and found myself in the cathedral-shaped room of the cosmetics section. The circular glass counters, displaying creams, oils, and pretty packages of makeup, shimmered with all the promise of an engagement ring. Too many perfumes, which had no business mingling, reminded me of when my four aunts came to visit. The air in our living room would thicken with unspoken anger and the battle of their fragrances.

  Women, some still clutching their winter coats around their shoulders, stared into the display cases, an obsessive look in their eyes. It was the same look lost dogs have as they run compulsively toward their elusive destination. I put my hand on one of the counters. The lights within made it feel warm and comforting.

  “May I help you?” The young saleswoman wore a pink smock and looked as if she had carefully painted her face on by the numbers.

  “What floor is couture on?” I asked.

  Her eyes drifted over my pink and black tweed jacket. She was unimpressed. “Second floor.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Perhaps a little lipstick?” she offered, whipping out a silver tube from under the counter. “Wet Red?”

  “No thanks. Which way are the escalators?”

  “To your right.”

  I found the escalator and ascended into the aloof and detached world of fashion. Each designer had his own fiefdom. Clothes with names didn’t mix. There was no lavishness or abundance of display. There was only a feeling of anal smugness in the few tiny-sized outfits that hung from hangers like colorful dead birds. There was also no sign of human life.

  The mannequins, their bald heads not quite hidden underneath their synthetic wigs, watched me with dead, sexless eyes as I moved passed Chanel, Valentino, Ungaro. I checked a price tag on a pink wooly number. I blinked. Yes, they weren’t kidding, it really cost three thousand and change. Clothes like this made me nervous. I mean, who wore them? It had to be women who never spilled, dribbled, or drooled. Women who never ate! That’s it. Now I understood anorexia. But what about the bulimics? Maybe they shopped on another floor.

  Hearing a female voice, I headed for a section where a thin blond woman sat at a desk talking on the phone. A customer, her hair dyed the color of a panther’s fur, waved a bunch of what looked like receipts under the nose of a saleslady with more pearls draped around her neck than Marley’s ghost had chains. Two men were dismantling a mannequin.

  “First I was told to go to the accounting department. Then I was told to come back down here.” The Panther Woman was frazzled.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the saleslady.

  “If you’ll just wait till Miss Platt gets off the phone,” the saleslady replied to the Panther Woman.

  Ignoring me, they both turned toward the blond Miss Platt.

  “I’m sure you have the black Valentino skirt, Mrs. Rosenthal. Just look in your closet,” Miss Platt spoke solicitously into the phone.

  “Excuse me,” I tried again.

  “Why can’t you help me?” It was Panther Woman. “For God’s sake, I’ve spent thousands. And my husband. My husband …” Her voice quivered with anger. Or was it fear?

  “You have to talk to Miss Platt or Mr. Golden,” the saleslady snapped.

  “You bought the Valentino when you were in here for your last fitting, remember, Mrs. Rosenthal? It goes with the white gabardine jacket with the black lace collar.”

  “I want to see the head of the department,” Panther Woman demanded.

  “I told you, Mr. Golden is at lunch.”

  “Excuse me.” It was Maggie the Undaunted. “I was wondering …”

  “I have better things to do than stand around and wait for her to talk on the phone,” Panther Woman announced. “And for him to eat his lunch and for you to treat me like shit!”

  “Shit?!” The saleslady went white. Her hands went for her pearls. “I will not be talked to that way!”

  “What way?”

  “Look in your closet, Mrs. Rosenthal.”

  The saleslady turned on me. “You heard her call me a shit.”

  “Well actually she didn’t call you a shit.”

  “I would never use such language.” Panther Woman turned on me. “Did I call her a shit?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “It’s black silk, Mrs. Rosenthal. It’s too late for black velvet.”

  “This is Kafkaesque,” I said, pushing up the sleeves of my jacket.

  “You think I care who designed your clothes?” Panther Woman growled.

  This did not bode well for getting information. I walked over to the two men in the corner who now had the mannequin in more pieces than a Thanksgiving turkey.

  “Excuse me,” I said, displaying my manila envelope. “Mr. Golden wanted me to give this to him immediately. Do you know where he’s having lunch?”

  “In the café on five.”

  “Thank you.”

  I rode the escalator to the fifth and found the cafe by walking through a shoe department and something called Contemporary Sportswear.

  The small restaurant was jammed into the back corner of the floor. Tables were shoved closely together. I honestly believe New Yorkers cannot digest their food if they are more than two feet apart from one another.

  Frenzied female voices competed with the clatter of dishes and silverware. I asked the cas
hier to point out Golden to me. With a toss of long dark hair and the sway of a silver hoop earring, she cocked her head toward a man sitting alone. I made my way toward him.

  Golden looked to be in his late thirties. He leaned forward sipping his soup, his tie thrown over his left shoulder so he wouldn’t dribble on it. I don’t think I could eat with a man who had to throw his tie over his shoulder every time he bit into a cracker.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Golden. I’m Maggie Hill, assistant to Claire Conrad.”

  He stopped sipping and peered up at me, soup spoon in midair.

  “Claire Conrad, the private detective,” I explained.

  That got him. He put the soup spoon down. “Detective?”

  “She was wondering if you could identify a dress for her?”

  “Identify?”

  “If you could tell us who designed a dress? May I sit down?”

  “How did you get my name?” he asked.

  “Claire Conrad has handled certain cases, very discreetly, for some of your clients. In fact, I don’t think it would be giving anything away if I said it was Mrs. Rosenthal who recommended that we talk to you.”

  “She’s one of our best customers.”

  “She thinks highly of you.”

  I sat down and slipped the photograph of Jackie out of the envelope. He studied it with the concentration of a mathematician looking at an equation.

  “Phillip St. Rome. From last year’s fall collection. Who is this poor thing? She doesn’t do the dress justice, does she?”

  “Is St. Rome a European designer?”

  “If a queen from Brooklyn is European, darling, he’s a European.”

  “If I wanted to get hold of him, how would I do that?”

  He reached into his coat pocket for a small, thin, black leather book. His long, manicured fingers flipped through blue pages edged with gold.

  “St. Rome’s sales representative is Blanchard Smith. Telephone number 555-5670.”

  I wrote it down in my stained and bulky Filofax.

  “Thanks. Oh, by the way, Mrs. Rosenthal can’t find her black Valentino skirt.”

  “Which one?”

  “It goes with the white-and-black-lace jacket.”

  “We just sold it to her. She really should venture deeper into her closet,” he said, breaking off a piece of bread. “It’s not like it’s Africa, you know?”